In 1964, Lorcan Otway’s father, a Quaker playwright, bought the building that now houses William Barnacle Tavern, and turned the jazz club there into Theatre 80. The site had once been a speakeasy favored by New York City Council members, and its walls were pockmarked by bullets and packed with dynamite for a quick escape. As a child, Otway watched the previous tenant retrieve two million dollars in gold certificates from a basement safe, beginning his long obsession with the building’s history. After taking over the theatre, in 2010, Otway added a bar to the space, named it after a legendary local sailor, and picked absinthe as its featured drink. Banned in the U.S. for almost a century, owing to temperance-movement humbug, absinthe, Otway explains, “fit our Prohibition history.” Nearly two dozen varieties, most of them from France and Switzerland, are served in the traditional manner: icy water is poured over a torched sugar cube, dissolving it in a reservoir of the verdant liquor. A Breton in a booth makes crêpes to order, notably one with blueberries, topped with freshly whipped cream. Unlike other bars on the block, this one is devoid of televisions and brand swag. It feels both experimental and trapped in time, recalling something Otway’s father often said: “When you climb a ladder, you don’t cut the rungs below you.” ♦